Swift & Co. officials said Thursday that it would be at least a week before they know precisely how many people work for the Greeley-based meatpacking company.

The confusion, Swift executives contend, shows how poorly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement executed raids of six Swift plants nationwide Tuesday. By storming into Swift plants only during the company's first shift, ICE lost the chance to confront - and possibly arrest - second-shift employees suspected of working illegally, Swift spokesman Sean McHugh said.

Approximately 7,000 people work the first shift of Swift's U.S. operations, and 8,000 others work the second shift, McHugh said.

"(The raids) might have made great TV, but they weren't thoughtful or as effective as they could have been," he said.

"If ICE was really so concerned about all of these people escaping into the interior (of the United States) and the safety of the American people, why didn't they come up with a plan to confront all of our employees?" McHugh asked.

ICE didn't answer that question directly Thursday. But the agency did issue a statement:

"ICE is not responsible for Swift's illegal alien workforce, nor did ICE create this problem for Swift. Any company with illegal aliens on its payroll should not be surprised to see ICE agents at its door."

Swift said it repeatedly offered to work with ICE - "even to escort them into the facilities and right up to the people they were looking for" - but essentially received a "thanks, but no thanks" from the agency, McHugh said.

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Tuesday's first-shift raids spooked and disrupted the lives of second-shift workers. McHugh said "possibly hundreds" of those employees have not returned to their jobs.

"But it could be 100 reasons why these people, who may not have done anything wrong, aren't back," he said. "They might be having to get documents to detention centers. They may have to find new child-care arrangements. They may have other community obligations. And it's true that some of them may never come back because they're illegal. We don't know."

Though the company doesn't have a handle on the number of its active employees, Swift is "running on all shifts at all plants and meeting its obligations," McHugh said.

But the company hasn't necessarily found it easy to get its work done. After receiving a letter in late October from ICE stating that the company was free to take action against illegal workers, Swift started questioning some employees.

The internal investigation prompted the departure of roughly 400 employees nationwide, including 106 who worked at the company's Greeley plant, said officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents Swift's Greeley employees. To help make up for the shortage at its Greeley plant, Swift hired at least 40 Somalis in the United States legally, union officials said.

But Swift hadn't replaced all of those lost workers before the ICE raids, McHugh said.